People v. Lane
| Citation | 133 N.E. 267,300 Ill. 422 |
| Decision Date | 22 December 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 14119.,14119. |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. LANE. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, St. Clair County; Louis F. Bernreuter, Judge.
Albert Lane and Raymond Titsworth were convicted of murder, and first-named defendant brings error.
Reversed and remanded.
McCarthy, Morris & Zachritz and Arthur L. Zachritz, all of St. Louis, Mo., and Wilbur E. Krebs, of Belleville, for plaintiff in error.
Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., H. E. Schaumleffel, State's Atty., of Belleville, Edward C. Fitch, Asst. Atty. Gen., and H. C. Lindauer of Belleville, for the People.
Albert Lane and Raymond Titsworth were indicted in the circuit court of St. Clair county for the murder of James Crossett on November 20, 1920. They were tried, found guilty, and sentenced, Titsworth to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life, and Lane to death. The latter has sued out a writ of error.
The only reason assigned for the reversal of the judgment which has been argued is the erroneous admission of evidence relating to other crimes alleged to have been committed by the defendants. The defendants were arrested on Christmas Eve, about a month after Crossett was murdered. They were examined by the police officers and made oral statements, in which they admitted not only that they had killed Crossett, but also that they had committed one or more other murders and several highway robberies. Each of the defendants also signed a written statement admitting the murder of Crossett. On the trial these statements, oral and written were offered in evidence by the prosecution, and the parts relating to other crimes were objected to by the defendants. Some of their objections were sustained, but many of them were overruled, and the statements of the defendants confessing their guilt of another murder and of highway robberies, as well as the murder for which they were indicted, were admitted. These other crimes were not connected in any way with the charge in the indictment. They were committed at other times and different places and were irrelevant to the issue and incompetent to be shown on the trial of this charge. The rule is that on a trial of a charge of crime evidence of a distinct and substantive offense cannot be admitted, and this rule is merely an application of the general rule that in all cases, civil or criminal, the evidence must be confined to the point in issue. The rule excludes all evidence of collateral facts which do not sustain or impeach a reasonable presumption as to the fact in issue, and therefore on a trial for murder it is not admissible, in order to prove the defendant's guilt, to show that he has at another time and place committed another...
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